Chess Bundesliga Kicks Off

10/11/2010 05:15 pm ETUpdated
Dec 06, 2017

Five years ago, the current French women's champion, Almira Skripchenko, became a poster girl for the German Bundesliga, arguably the world's strongest national chess team competition. Kicking the chess pieces, she made a symbolic connection between soccer and chess. FIFA, the governing body of soccer, has 208 member countries, the most of any sport. The World Chess Federation (FIDE) with 159 nations is second. In many countries chess is considered sport, run by national sports organizations, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is seriously thinking to include it in the Summer Olympics. And unlike in many sports, women can compete against men across the chessboard.
Skripchenko is a member of the Werder Bremen team in the Bundesliga that has good chances to fight for the first place this year. They won the first three matches and are in the lead. OSG Baden-Baden is the defending champion and a clear favorite to win it all with an impressive line-up of foreign players on the top eight boards. OSG only played two matches over the last weekend, winning twice, despite missing their three superstars. The world champion Vishy Anand, the world's top-ranked Magnus Carlsen and Alexei Shirov are playing the Bilbao Masters in Spain. In one of the matches OSG Baden defeated SG Solingen, a team I joined in 1969 as their top player. During my 21-year stint we won 10 national titles and two European Club championships. At the beginning, the German Chess Federation fought the foreign players tooth and nail and allowed only two of them on a team. Today, the foreigners dominate the top teams.

Chess is getting global and you find players from all parts of the world participating in national team competitions in Europe. You can see Chinese grandmasters playing on Russian teams and South American players in Spain , Portugal and France. The top U.S. grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura played in Austria and Spain. The other American GM Alexander Onischuk plays in Germany, where you can find players from India, Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland and other countries.

The Ukrainian GM Alexander Areshchenko, another member of the Werder Bremen team, accomplished an interesting feat. In the first two Bundesliga rounds, he won two games against the flexible Scheveningen Sicilian. In the second game, he defeated the Slovakian GM Lubomir Ftacnik, one of the foremost experts, who issued a very instructive DVD about the opening.

11.Qe1 (The queen will go to the square g3, creating attacking chances against the black king. After the positional approach 11.a4, I have originated the Twin Tower defense, 11...Re8 12.Bf3 Rb8, at the Manila Interzonal in 1976 against Yuri Balashov. It was later picked up by Garry Kasparov, who used it to win the last game of his 1985 match against Karpov and became the world champion. It is now the most popular defensive set-up.) 11...Nxd4 12.Bxd4 b5 13.a3 Bb7 14.Qg3 Rad8 (Black is at crossroads. Ftacnik's line was developed by Hungarian players in anticipation of white's attack on the kingside. Black can also try to play actively on the queenside with 14...Bc6 15.Rae1 Qb7 as in the other Areshchenko's game, which continued: 16.Bd3 b4 17.Nd1 bxa3 18.bxa3 g6 19.Nf2 Rac8 20.Qh3 Rfd8 21.Rb1 Qd7 22.Qh6 Bb5 23.Nh3 Bf8 24.Qh4 Nh5 25.g4 Be7 26.Ng5 e5? 27.gxh5 Bxg5 28.Qxg5 exd4 29.f5 Re8 30.f6 Kh8 31.hxg6 Re5 32.Qh6 [After 32...fxg6 33.f7 wins.] Black resigned in Areshchenko-Lammers, Bremen, Bundesliga 2010/11.) 15.Rae1 Rd7 16.Bd3 Re8 (Black is ready to fight.)

17.Re3!? (White would like to add more pieces to his attack. Swinging the knight to the kingside with Nc3-d1-f2 didn't bring much success and is being replaced by the rook-lift.) 17...g6 (Ftacnik tries to spare a move from the bunker strategy 17...Qd8 18.Qh3 g6 that showed some cracks after 19.Ref3!, preparing a powerful advance of the f-pawn. Black was unable to find a solid defense. For example:

B. The play through the center with 19...d5 is tackled by 20.f5!! dxe4 21.fxg6 fxg6 [After 21...exf3 22.Qxh7+! Nxh7 23.gxh7+ Kf8 24.h8R mates.] 22.Rxf6 Rxd4 23.Rf7 Bh4 24.Be2, threatening to win a piece with either 25.Rxb7 or 26.g3, as in the game Caruana -Sasikiran,Wijk aan Zee 2009.)

18.Ref3!? (Prepares the f4-f5 advance. The immediate 18.f5? is met by 18...e5 19.Nd5 [After 19.fxg6 fxg6 20.Nd5 Nxd5 21.exd5 Rf8 and black blunts the attack.] 19...Bxd5 20.exd5 exd4 21.fxg6 dxe3 22.gxf7+ Kxf7 23.Bxh7 Rh8 24.Qg6+ Kf8 25.Qh6+ Kf7 [Or 25...Ke8? 26.Bg6+ Kd8 27.Qxh8+ and white mates.] 26.Qg6+ and white has only a perpetual check.) 18...d5 (Preventing 19.f5, but allowing white to block the center.) 19.e5 Ne4 20.Qe1 b4 21.axb4 Bxb4 (Optically, black is not doing badly, but his kingside is still vulnerable.) 22.Rh3 Qd8 (Trying to prevent Qe1-h4, but 22...Bc5 23.Qh4 f5 was better.) 23.Qe3 (Not only escaping from the pin, but the queen may eventually end up on the square h6.)